I'm your host, Jester. I've been an EVE Online player for about six years. One of my four mains is Ripard Teg, pictured at left. Sadly, I've succumbed to "bittervet" disease, but I'm wandering the New Eden landscape (and from time to time, the MMO landscape) in search of a cure.You can follow along, if you want...

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Fit of the Week: Pre-Retribution Sacrilege

With Heavy Assault Missiles about to become a lot more interesting, it's only natural to want to take a another look at the much-maligned Sacrilege. You'd think with the alliance between Amarr and Caldari, there'd be more Amarr missile ships. Nope. The Sac is really the only one worth talking about right now though perhaps that will change in due course.(1) Here is an extremely solid -- though slightly expensive -- PvP Sac fit:

The nice thing about the Sac is that you can tank the hell out of it -- a nearly-T3 quality tank is possible. Or you can dial it down slightly and benefit greatly from Damnation or Legion armor links. Lowering the resistances slightly means you won't have as much of a stacking penalty inflicted on you from the links. For this fit, I've gone with this idea. Even before links, this fit out-tanks a similar Zealot by about 6k EHP. But after links, this is a 100k EHP ship, 25% more tanky than the comparable Zealot. That's very solid and more than justifies the expense of the faction EANM. That leaves two slots for Ballistic Control Units which will do very nice things for the HAM launchers.

Unfortunately, in a fit of extremely poor ship design, the long-range Zealot is 100m/s faster than the short-range Sac... but there's one thing you can potentially do about that which I'll get to in a few minutes.

DPS is provided by five HAM launchers and unlike the Zealot you can tune your DPS to any type of damage you like. So carry a variety of both faction HAMs and a couple of reloads of Rage HAMs as well. Once Retribution drops, you should also consider a reload of Javelin Inferno HAMs. I'm not yet convinced that Javelin HAMs are powerful enough, but interestingly they allow the Sac to pelt a target from outside point range.

Will a slower-than-average armor-tanked ship be kiting anything? Probably not. But with the Javelin penalties being removed, the possibility is not worth dismissing entirely, at least not yet. You might even go nuts and carry one reload of all four types.

Faction missiles put tunable DPS at around a 475 DPS base, and the open utility slot gives you a pretty good safety margin for over-heating to 550 DPS. However, I think the best option is to put launchers #1, #3, and #5 in a group and overheat that group. That puts DPS at around 515-520 for nearly two minutes with good skills. That's equal to or better than a Zealot, and again the DPS is tunable. With Guided Missile Precision soon to affect the HAMs, I believe this is going to put Sac DPS firmly greater than Zealot DPS for the foreseeable future, and Rage HAMs are going to be significantly better than Conflag once Retribution drops. Sacs will be capable of just eating battleships.

Where the Sac really shines besides tank is in the mid slots. I like dual-propping this beast, but this is a really tight fit grid-wise, so you might prefer a Target Painter or some other e-war or ECCM. I include close-range drones, but you can swap them for Warriors or Hornet ECs if you like.

So overall, I think the Sac definitely deserves another look if you've dismissed it in the past. Play with the fit a little bit and you can even wedge a little bit of utility in that open high slot if you like.

One more thing: post-Retribution, HAM launchers will cost 10% less grid. That's going to free up about 56 grid total. One option is to use that grid to make this fit work without Advanced Weapon Upgrades, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that option. Still, if you do have AWU5, there's an alternative option: a Federation Navy 1600mm Reinforced Steel Plate. These mods used to be one of the best-kept secrets in New Eden. Their effect is equal to a 1600mm RRT Plate, but at only 75% of the mass penalty. While this isn't a major factor on battleships, on cruiser-size ships it makes a significant difference. This Sac picks up about 50m/s under MWD, for instance. The Fed Navy plate used to be very inexpensive but in the last year or so the price has escalated to 100-120 million as players have figured out the benefit of this mod. So you'll have to decide if the extra 50m/s is worth it... and you're still going to have to either sacrifice the AB or use a 1% grid implant to make it all fit. It's up to you.

All in all, I'd say the Sac's headed for a renaissance...

(1) Yes, I know about the Curse. If you're fitting missile launchers to your Curse, in my opinion, you're doing it wrong. And yes, dual-rep Vengeances are also quite interesting though slightly under-powered compared to the many alternatives.

All Fits of the Week are intended as general guidelines only. You
may not have the skills needed for this exact fit. If you do not, feel
free to adjust the fit to suit to meet your skills, including using meta
3 guns and "best named" defenses and e-war. Ships can also be adjusted
to use faction or dead-space modules depending on the budget of the
pilot flying it. Each FOTW is intended as a general guide to introduce
you to concepts that will help you fit and to fly that particular type
of ship more aggressively and well.

7 comments:

Here is me hoping someday Eve Online small gang PvP will be mainly Cruisers instead of mainly Battlecruisers. I would love dishing it out against a Sacrilege (or any T1 Cruiser) instead of Drakes and Canes. Bring on the cruiser era!!

There should be LESS Amarr missile ships, not more. If you want Amarr pilots to train turret support skills and then energy turret skills, why would you want to distract them with a couple of ships that use missiles? Many Amarr chars don't even bother with missile skills at all for the first few years. All these boats do is ensure the Amarr will have underused ships that hardly anyone flies.

At the very least, if this situation is going to continue, CCP should offer a Caldari command ship with bonuses to lasers.

Every race needs a primary and a secondary weapon system. Gallente have blasters and drones. Caldari have missiles and rails. Minmatar have projectiles of both types and missiles. Amarr have lasers and... ummm... other lasers.

Granted, there seems to be a push to make that "lasers and drones" but that seems silly when every race uses drones to a pretty good extent now.

One interesting thingyou pointed out is the FED NAVy plates... I used to luv them until the T2 plates got such a boost HP wise.Sincethey arebooth reinforcedsteel one'd thought that the faction plates hould have gotten the same boot because ofthier high price but no :( They (FED Navy) have fallen out of favor though drastically ( especially inIncursions were Im a iconoclast) since. I am hopeing that the faction plates next expansion get thesame mass + Hp bonus which where granted to the T2 plates~DarthNefarius

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